The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-03-10

| Russia and Bulgaria, and between Eng land
and her antagonists, and between all the
other nations that are flying at each others
Threats, and command peace and dishaud
armies and harness for the pillow the war
horses now being hitched to ammunition
wagons or saddled for cavalry charge.
That time must come, Or through the III
creased facility for shooting men and GLOW
ing up cities and whelming hosts to
instant death, so that we can kill Il regi,
ment easier than we could once
kill a company, and kill a brigade
easier than we could once kill regiment,
the patent offices of the world more busy
than ever in recognizing the engnery of
destruction, the human race will after
awhile go fighting with one arm, and hob
bling with one foot, and stumbling along
with one eye and some ir genious inventor,
inspired of the archangel of all mischief,
| will contrive machine that will bore a
hole to the earth's center, and scme des-
perate nation will throw into that hole
enough dynamite to blow this hulk of
planet into fragments, dropping like me-
teoric stones on surrounding stellar habi-
tations.
But this shall not be, for whatever else
let go / hang on to my Bible, which tells
me that the blacksmith's shop shall yet
come to its grandest use, when the warrior
and the husbandman shall enter it side by
side, and the soldier shall throw into it's
bank Of fires his sword, and the farmer
shall pick it up a plowshare, and the
straightest spear shall be bent into crook
at each end and then cut in two and what
was one spear shall be two pruning forks
Down with Moloch AMI up with Christi
Let no more war horses eat out of the
Manager where Jesus was born.
Peacel Forever roll off the sky the black
pillars of smoke from the Marengos and
Salamancas and Borodinos and Sedans and
Gettysburgs of earth! And right after
them roll into the heavens the peaceful
vapors of the chimneys of farm houses,
and asylums, and churches, and capitals of
Christian nations, and as the sunlight
strikes through these vapors they will
write in letters of jet and gold all over the
sky from horizon to zenith: "Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
toward menr' Then let all the men-of-war
fire a broadside and all the forts thunder
forth resembling volley, and the earth be
girled with the cannonade over the final
victory of the truth.
For fifty-nine centuries the devil had it
his own way among the nations. Nearly
all the missionary movements have been
started within the century and see what
one century has done to recover the world
from fifty-nine centuries of devastation.
What great revivalsi What mighty
churches! What saved millions What
advancing civilization! In all the United
States, Great Britain, France, Ireland,
Germany, Italy, full freedom to worship
God according to conscience. Along the
coasts of China, Japan and Africa the bat
teries are planted which are to take all
these empires for God and civilization.
From the runs of Babylon and Assyra
and Nlneveh and the valleys of the Nile
combinations have been exhumet proving
to all fair-minded men that the Bible is the
trueSt book ever written. The mytholo-
gles of Egypt were found to have embodied
in them the knowledge of mans expulsion
from Paradise, and the sacrifice of great
emancipation. Moses account of the crea-
ton, corroborated by the hammer of geolo-
gists; the oldest profane writers like
Hiromus, Helanicus and Berosus, confirm
ing the Bible account of ancient longe ity;
Tacitus and Pliny confirming the Bible &C
counts of destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah;
Tacitus and Porphyry telling the same
story of Christ as Matthew and Luke told;
Macrobius telling of the massacre of chill
dren in Bethlehem, and Phlegon sketching
the darkness at the cruciixion.
1t is demonstrated to all honest men tina,
it is not so certain that William Cullen
Bryant wrote Thanatopsis or Longfellow
wrote Hiawatha as that God by the hand
of prophet and apostle wrote the Bible. All
the wise men in science and law and med
icine and literature and merchandise are
gradually coming to believe in Christianity,
and soon there will be no people who dis
believe in it, except those conspicuous
for lack of brain or men with two families
who do not like the Bible because it re
, Dukes their swinish propensities.
The time is fastening when there will BIZ
no infidels left except Hbertines and har
lots and murderers. Millions of Christians
, where once there were thousands, ano
t thousands where once there were hun
, dreds. What bright evening this, the
evening of the nineteenth century, and
the twentieth century, which will dawn in
! thirteen years from now, will, in my opin-
3 ion, bring universal victory for Christ and
the church, that now is marching ON witt
| step double quick or, if you prefer the
figure of the text, is being swept on in the
mighty gales of blessing, imposing and
grand and majestic and swift, like pillars
of smoke.
Oh, come into the church through Christ
| oHC doOi, biic oOOr uuOFC RlUFlOuS bItdH Gnd
of the Temple of Hercules, which had two
pillars, and one was gold and the othe,
: emerald! Come in to-day Come in and
be one of the eternal victorsl The world
you leave behind is poor world, and il
will burn and pass off like pillars of smoke.
Whether the final conflagration will start
in the coal mines of Pennsylvania which
in some places, have for many years been
burning and eating into the heart of the
mountains; or whether it shall begin neal
: the California geysers, or whether from
out of the furnaces of Cotopaxi and Vesu-
vius and Stromboli, it shall burst forth
upon the astonished nations.
Imake no prophecy, but all biologists tel
us that we stand on the lid of world the
, heart of which is a raging, roaring, awful
flame, and some day God will let the red
monsters out of their Imprisonment of cent
uries, and New York on fire in 1885, and
Charleston on fire in 1865, and Chicago Oh
fire in 1871, and Boston on fire in 1877 were
: only like one spark from a blacksmith's
forge as compared with that last universal
blaze, which will be seen in other worlds.
But gradually the flames will lessen and
= the world will bacorna q great living coal